Chapter 428: The Mystery of the Crystal Mine
When Kia knew that Chen Rui was going to the Crystal Valley, she wanted to follow him to see where her mother died, but the Crystal Valley was obviously not safe now; Chen Rui barely managed to convince her.
Last time, Chen Rui cut off the spiritual link in Town Lupin and terminated the symbiotic contract with Paglio, but he adopted “cut” instead of “cancel”.
Cancellation implied elimination while cutting off implied retaining the attributes already obtained from the connection and forcibly cutting the link, but the cost was higher than the “cancel”. Chen Rui spent 1 million aura at the time to cut off the symbiotic contract.
It was not because he deliberately wanted to steal Paglio’s life, but because he spent hundreds of years in the training ground. He had far exceeded the lifespan of ordinary humans. If he cancelled, perhaps he would die out of lifespan depletion immediately; let alone cover Paglio and Athena to escape.
In this way, just like Manu last time, the characteristics provided by the symbiotic contract were preserved, including the powerful ability of mating. In fact, even if there was no power provided by the symbiotic contract, the wretched characteristics of the supplementary [Dual Training] of the Super System alone was enough for him to fight at another battlefield. Especially [Dual Training] could help to deal with the special Devour Physique of the succubus without Dark Will.
Early in the morning, Chen Rui sat up slowly, pulled the blanket, and covered Kia’s fair and attractive body.
Last night, the human spent all his effort on the little maid to get her to climax a few times; she almost enfeeble on the bed. Now, she was sleeping soundly.. He kissed the succubus’s forehead lightly, tiptoed up, got dressed, and walked out of the room.
The moment Chen Rui turned and walked out of the door, Kia’s beautiful eyes opened slightly as she watched his back disappeared quietly. The little maid understood that she was not strong enough, so she should not be a burden to him. The only thing that she could do now was to pray for him to come back safely.
Chen Rui bade farewell to Shea and her sister. He rode a wyvern and left the b.l.o.o.d.y Vine Flower City straight away. He flew toward the Dark Moon at the south, but he actually detoured to the north. His destination was precisely the Black Iron Mountain Range at the north.
The rule of the contract was that the same contract could only be used once for the same object in a lifetime. Even if Paglio wanted to sign a symbiotic contract again, it wouldn’t work. Fortunately, there were other equality contracts. The quota of Chen Rui’s equality link was now 5. After re-signing a mutually beneficial equality link with Paglio, there were 4 remaining.
Since the temporary [Link Enhancement] effect was quite obvious, 2 of these 4 slots were given to Zola and Krobelus, who had the strongest combat effectiveness. 2 slots were temporarily vacant. Since Roman had signed some kind of spiritual contract with the lifelong companion beast, evil eye tyrant, he was unable to sign a second contract. Meanwhile, Delia, Athena and the others confessed that they were insufficient in combat power, so they did not want to waste the limited number of slots.
Chen Rui did not force them. His idea was to sign a contract with each of them when he had sufficient faith crystals. Then, he would use the [Star-level Enhancement] to permanently enhance their strength, but that price was not cheap. The first level of one-star enhancement alone required 100,000 faith crystals. It was completely different from the limited time [Link Enhancement] which required 100 crystals.
After Shura’s war faith was established, the generation speed of faith crystals really increased drastically. There were already more than 900 at present. It wouldn’t be long before he could test the strongest [Royal Star Transformation] skill.
The area of the b.l.o.o.d.y Vine Flower Estate was very wide; it was only slightly smaller than the Dark Moon. Chen Rui was going to the northernmost of the Black Iron Mountain Range. Even though he was riding a wyvern, it took 5 days to reach the misty swamp where the Crystal Valley was located. This speed was already considered very fast. The last time when he followed Manu, they rode a mutated griffin which took 7 days.
As Crawford said, the area of the misty swamp was heavily guarded, and there were many protective magic circles, but this defense was specially for the “entrance” that Catherine forcefully opened previously. However, Chen Rui knew that there was also a special pa.s.sage into the Crystal Valley through Dragon Inscription. No doubt, the hidden inscriptions were not destroyed, especially the 3-layer inscriptions in front of the waterhole. Through the transmission of the waterhole, Chen Rui successfully bypa.s.sed the defense forces and entered the Crystal Valley.
The scenery of the Crystal Valley was still breathtaking, but the original Devouring Hall, Nightmare Valley, Crystal Lair and other facilities were abandoned. Some had been transformed into mining facilities. Chen Rui reminiscenced the past where he became a spy in the Crystal Valley as if it was just yesterday. The death of Freya and Lafar had always been a pain in his heart.
Power. I still need stronger power to protect the people who are important to me.
Chen Rui took a deep breath and turned his gaze to the entrance of the mine which was the former site of Crystal Lair where the crystal dragon Jacob was originally located. There was no one in the valley.
Chen Rui was still dressed in a cloak. He entered the mine and sneaked all the way under the lights of the mine according to the mining map provided by Crawford.
This underground mine was quite s.p.a.cious and extended in all directions. It had the same style as Mountain Xilang. Strictly speaking, it was not built by Crawford or Catherine, but the original crystal dragon Jacob. Because the crystal dragon hadn’t been able to recover from the serious injuries caused by Paglio back then. Due to his special physique, the potion and the like had no effect. He needed to use the magic circle to absorb the power of the crystal to repair his body. However, before the poor crystal dragon fully recovered, he encountered another wretched Master Arthur. As a result, he was fortunate enough to have a friendly “match” with the Demon Realm’s first beauty.
As expected, the magic map was disrupted by some force and soon lost its function. Chen Rui continued to move on with the physical map provided by Crawford. Of course, this map also had considerable errors due to the illusion created by the interference of the magic circle, but Chen Rui was no longer a rookie in Mountain Xilang. He marked and corrected the map while venturing forward. Although this inch-by-inch search was slow and often led to a dead end, it could avoid errors to the greatest extent. The revised map was also of considerable value to the b.l.o.o.d.y Vine Flower Estate.
Sure enough, after a while, Chen Rui keenly discovered the existence of the magic circle. Besides, it was also mixed with the breath of Dragon Inscription. Perhaps it was the trap left by the left by the crystal dragon at that time. It seemed that there was still a set of quite complicated traps.
It was not so easy to dispel Dragon Inscriptions. It was like mine clearance by engineers. Even with the corresponding knowledge and facilities, there was a great danger. With the help of the Super System, Chen Rui fully grasped Paglio’s knowledge. The crystal dragon also taught part of his own experience when he was at the Crystal Valley previously, and together with Zola’s wide inscription knowledge, Chen Rui’s current Dragon Inscription level even surpa.s.sed Paglio, second only to Zola. He didn’t spend a lot of time and effort to crack the inscriptions, but he cautiously detoured from the Dragon Inscriptions. He tried not to disturb or trigger those inscriptions just in case. Along the way, he searched for the whereabouts of Master Rummenigge.
About 3 hours later, Chen Rui finally figured out the pattern of the Dragon Inscriptions’ changes. It was indeed a large-scale and high-level inscription magic circle. He traced the origin step by step and approached the source carefully.
The scale of this mine was larger than Chen Rui imagined. It seemed endless. Besides, the topography and layout did not seem to be a mine, but a complicated and huge underground maze.
What surprised Chen Rui was that at a turning intersection after pa.s.sing through several chain inscriptions, he actually felt the hint of ancient runes. He clearly knew that the crystal dragon was not familiar with ancient runes. When Jacob grabbed Zola’s stone slab back then, he just used the mysterious power of the stone slab to recover his injuries. Moreover, I have stolen the 6 stone slabs. With the level of the dragon, he is definitely unable to deploy this level of ancient runes. Could it be Bloodfall has an expert in this aspect?
Just as Chen Rui was surprised, he suddenly seemed vigilant; he hid in the shadows. Soon, a figure appeared in the faint light ahead.
The movement of this figure was a bit stiff, and the whole body was full of clear crystals, reflecting a strange light under the s.h.i.+ne of the magic lamp.
Race: Crystal Man (Puppet). Comprehensive Strength a.s.sessment: C-. Physique: C, Strength: C, Spirit: F-, Agility: D-. Attribute: [Anti-Magic].
Demon King level… crystal man? This familiar crystal puppet made Chen Rui finally realize that the strange incidents that happened here were all caused by his “old friend”!
Although Chen Rui still had some doubts about the ancient runes, he didn’t think about it any more. He followed the crystal puppet all the way forward. The crystal puppet had no autonomous consciousness and only obeyed the master’s command. Despite having a certain sense of perception, it was still unable to sense the follower who had reached the Demon Emperor level.
As the light began to brighten, the crystal man came to a place and stopped. There were several identical crystal puppets inside. Many demons carried out the mined minerals from the surrounding mines from time to time.
These demons were sluggish and looked very tired. However, if they even paused slightly, they would be beaten or even killed by the crystal men. Judging from their attire, they should be miners who had disappeared from the previous mine. The role of the crystal puppets seemed to be to patrol and supervise them.
With a thought, Chen Rui approached them secretly. He turned into a miner’s attire calmly, then he walked forward in a magnificent manner. He took a basket of minerals and followed the miners to move forward.
The mined minerals were transported to a hall by the miners. The hall was surrounded by a circle of crystal puppets. It was tightly guarded. There was a portal or something like that at the front, and the minerals were poured into the portal.
There was a middle-aged man in his forties with extraordinary demeanour near the portal. He directed the miners to draw magic marks on the ground.
Chen Rui’s eyes lit up. This middle-aged man was one of his targets this time, Master Rummenigge!
The most dangerous place is the safest place? Did Jacob really return after the fall of Crystal Valley?